THE production notes for “Perestroika” state that its Russian writer-producer-director, Slava Tsukerman, has made 43 films.

The only one that captured attention in the US was the cult hit “Liquid Sky” (1982), in which space aliens land on the roof of a downtown Manhattan penthouse in search of a chemical released during sex.

“Perestroika” forgoes aliens — but not sex — to tell the story of the director’s alter ego, Sasha Greenberg (Sam Robards), an astrophysicist who returns to his native Moscow after 17 years of self-exile in America.

Greenberg finds himself dealing with four women, including his estranged wife (Ally Sheedy) and a 17-year-old (Maria Andreeva) who just might be his daughter by an ex-lover.

Adding to the culture shock are a swiftly changing Moscow and painful memories of anti-

Semitism.

“Perestroika” races back and forth between the Soviet past and non-Communist present. The result is highly personal (Moscow-born Tsukerman also went into exile), talky, clunky and somehow engrossing.